Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Poem 670

One need not be a chamber to be haunted,
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.

Far safer, of a Midnight Meeting
External Ghost
Than its interior Confronting
That Cooler Host.

Far safer, through an Abbey gallop,
The Stones a'chase
Than Unarmed, one's a'self encounter
In lonesome Place

Ourself behind ourself, concealed
Should startle most
Assassin hid in our Apartment
Be Horror's least.

The Body borrows a Revolver
He bolts the Door
O'erlooking a superior spectre
Or More
-Emily Dickinson

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Raise the Thyrsus and Join the Revel Rout, Pangea!

A Maiden:
From Asia, from the dayspring that uprises
To Bromios ever glorying we came.
We laboured for our Lord in many guises;
We toiled, but the toil is as the prize is;
Thou Mystery, we hail thee by thy name!

Another:
Who lingers in the road? Who espies us?
We shall hide him in his house nor be bold.
Let the heart keep silence that defies us;
For I sing this day to Dionysus
The song that is appointed from of old.

All the Maidens:
Oh, blessèd he in all wise,
Who hath drunk the Living Fountain,
Whose life no folly staineth,
And his soul is near to God;
Whose sins are lifted, pall-wise,
As he worships on the Mountain,
And where Cybele ordaineth,
Our Mother, he has trod:

His head with ivy laden
And his thyrsus tossing high,
For our God he lifts his cry;
"Up, O Bacchae, wife and maiden,
Come, O ye Bacchae, come;
Oh, bring the Joy-bestower,
God-seed of God the Sower,
Bring Bromios in his power
From Phrygia's mountain dome;
To street and town and tower,
Oh, bring ye Bromios home."

Whom erst in anguish lying
For an unborn life's desire,
As a dead thing in the Thunder
His mother cast to earth;
For her heart was dying, dying,
In the white heart of the fire;
Till Zeus, the Lord of Wonder,
Devised new lairs of birth;

Yea, his own flesh tore to hide him,
And with clasps of bitter gold
Did a secret son enfold,
And the Queen knew not beside him;
Till the perfect hour was there;
Then a hornèd God was found,
And a God of serpents crowned;
And for that are serpents wound
In the wands his maidens bear,
And the songs of serpents sound
In the mazes of their hair.
- Euripides, "The Bacchae"

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Cocorosies in our Toesies

It was just before the moon hung
Her weary heavy head in
The gallows and the graves of
The milky milky cradle
His tears have turned to poppies
A shimmer in the midnight
A flower in the twilight
A flower in the twilight

And our screaming
Is in his screaming
Our screaming in the willow

They took him to the gallows
He fought them all the way though
And when they asked us how we knew his name
We died just before him
Our eyes are in the flowers
Our hands are in the branches
Our voices in the breezes

And our screaming
Is in his screaming
Our screaming in the willow tree

We're waiting by the willow
Our milky milky cradle
Our lockets long have rusted
His picture worn and weathered
Our hair is in the garden
The roses in our toeses
Our heart are in the blossoms
Our eyes are in the branches

And our screaming
Is in his screaming
Our screaming in the willow tree

Monday, January 16, 2012

Again & Again &

Can we plant this flag
Execute this case
Maybe you have lost us from behind a wagon from USA

Should we telepatize?
Who do we want to impress?
Will you call someone who will massacrate?

But when we come again to
Do it again then
You will hear it again and

Again and again and
Should we be send away?
Should we be bend by joints?
Will you mould us down with blood and sweat

The moon is perky and round
Has it stead to ground?
Møjsomt er vi i bund, nøjsomt er Kaspers fund
(You cant really translate this part into english)

But when we come again to
Do it again then
You will here it again and
Again and again and

The moon (cant remember the word, but it when acid gets in touch with skin)
But we bet
Black bottles
Drags Kasper(danish name)

Again and again and

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Man-Stealing Made Simple


From the Jowett Summary of Plato's "Sophist"
Conquest by craft is called hunting, and of hunting there is one kind which pursues inanimate, and another which pursues animate objects; and animate objects may be either land animals or water animals, and water animals either fly over the water or live in the water. The hunting of the last is called fishing; and of fishing, one kind uses enclosures, catching the fish in nets and baskets, and another kind strikes them either with spears by night or with barbed spears or barbed hooks by day; the barbed spears are impelled from above, the barbed hooks are jerked into the head and lips of the fish, which are then drawn from below upwards. Thus, by a series of divisions, we have arrived at the definition of the angler's art.

And now by the help of this example we may proceed to bring to light the nature of the Sophist. Like the angler, he is an artist, and the resemblance does not end here. For they are both hunters, and hunters of animals; the one of water, and the other of land animals. But at this point they diverge, the one going to the sea and the rivers, and the other to the rivers of wealth and rich meadow-lands, in which generous youth abide. On land you may hunt tame animals, or you may hunt wild animals. And man is a tame animal, and he may be hunted either by force or persuasion;—either by the pirate, man-stealer, soldier, or by the lawyer, orator, talker. The latter use persuasion, and persuasion is either private or public. Of the private practitioners of the art, some bring gifts to those whom they hunt: these are lovers. And others take hire; and some of these flatter, and in return are fed; others profess to teach virtue and receive a round sum. And who are these last? Tell me who? Have we not unearthed the Sophist?
H/T - Gert

Saturday, January 14, 2012

What the Mirror Won't Reveal

The Me we all Wish to Be-Come, and Others Choose to See

The Me that we Choose to Conceal, so that Others don't all Flee

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Life On Your Own

So long as I alone drank of the black-watered spring, the water thereof methought was sweet and good; but now 'tis all fouled and the water mixed with mud. I'll drink from another and a purer spring
- Theognis of Megara (959-962)

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Saloman's Enigma of the Absolute

Saloman hung down her head
Laid bare her heart for the world to see
She craved for intimacy
Through the darkened doors
Her aspect veiled with indecision
Gazed out to sea
She craved lucidity

Cast adrift from past relationships in her life
Hoisted up the ideal
This was her saving grace
Sea's of rage
That once assailed her concern for the truth
Had past her by
And left her high and dry

In her saviors arms
In her saviors arms
In her saviors arms
In her saviors arms

Across the sea lies the fountain of renewal
Where you will see
The whole cause of your loneliness
Can be measured in dreams
That transcend all these lies
and I wish and I pray
That there may come a day for a saviors arms
for a saviors arms
for a saviors arms
for a saviors arms
for a saviors arms

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Burning Your Over the Shoulder Boulder Holders

The goddess was moved, and uttered oracular speech: 'Leave the temple and with veiled heads and loosened clothes throw behind you the bones of your great mother!'

For a long time they stand there, dumbfounded. Pyrrha is first to break the silence: she refuses to obey the goddess's command. Her lips trembling, she asks for pardon, fearing to offend her mother's spirit by scattering her bones. Meanwhile they reconsider the dark words the oracle gave, and their uncertain meaning, turning them over and over in their minds.

Then Prometheus's son comforted Epimetheus's daughter with quiet words: 'Either this idea is wrong, or, since oracles are godly and never urge evil, our great mother must be the earth: I think the bones she spoke about are stones in the body of the earth. It is these we are told to throw behind us.'

Though the Titan's daughter is stirred by her husband's thoughts, still hope is uncertain: they are both so unsure of the divine promptings; but what harm can it do to try? They descended the steps, covered their heads and loosened their clothes, and threw the stones needed behind them. The stones, and who would believe it if it were not for ancient tradition, began to lose their rigidity and hardness, and after a while softened, and once softened acquired new form. Then after growing, and ripening in nature, a certain likeness to a human shape could be vaguely seen, like marble statues at first inexact and roughly carved. The earthy part, however, wet with moisture, turned to flesh; what was solid and inflexible mutated to bone; the veins stayed veins; and quickly, through the power of the gods, stones the man threw took on the shapes of men, and women were remade from those thrown by the woman. So the toughness of our race, our ability to endure hard labour, and the proof we give of the source from which we are sprung.
- Ovid, "Metamorphoses"

Monday, January 2, 2012

An Odyssey

*Aethon am I by race, but live in well-walled Thebes, forbidden my native town.
- Theognis of Megara (1209-1210)

*Aethon is the name Odysseus gives himself in answering Penelope, Od. 19. 183